On Friday, the Future of Music Coalition, a musicians’ advocacy group, published a blog post taking issue with some of the arguments and data from my Aug. 23 cover story in the magazine, “The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t.” I take their comments very seriously for several reasons: First, their concerns — that musicians be appropriately compensated in this digital age — are my concerns. Second, they have assembled some important studies of the new economics emerging in the music business, many of which I drew upon in writing the article.

In this episode of the Music Business Podcast, we talk with Casey Rae, who is the CEO of the Future of Music Coalition, a non-profit research, education, and advocacy organization for musicians. We talk to Rae about the need for transparency amongst streaming companies and why it’s important to artists.

There are a number of reasons for the inaccessibility of this information, one of which is the frequent sale of individual works and entire catalogs and the infrequent recordation of these sales. Further, in recent years there has been a proliferation, particularly in pop music, of songs with many writers, each of whom generally owns a share of the work, making it difficult for potential licensees without great knowledge of music licensing to determine whose permission they need for a certain use. The Future of Music Coalition illustrated this point using a hit song by Flo Rida that had 13 writers who were represented by a total of 17 publishers.

In February 2014, 19 Recordings—a record label representing artists from the TV show “American Idol” like Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood—sued Sony Music for allegedly withholding royalty payments totaling $7 million. In March of this year, U.S. District Court Judge Ronnie Abrams issued a ruling allowing some of these claims to go to trial. The upshot is that, while some components of the case will move forward, the court decided that others don’t hold water. Even more recently, Sony swung back with allegations of fiduciary mismanagement at 19.

Every so often your pals at FMC take the weekend to do stuff like… make music. Seems like whenever we do, a major industry story breaks.

To wit: Taylor Swift’s open letter to Apple regarding the “free trial” period for Apple Music, during which the 12th largest company in world decided it would not be paying royalties to artists and rightsholders.read more

Assuming the contract’s authenticity, there’s not a lot in there that’s particularly revelatory for those of us who’ve been closely following the ongoing debates over on-demand streaming services. However, it does offer confirmation of certain controversial practices, and a snapshot of some of the dynamics associated with service design. Here are some key points to keep in mind.

This week, cellist and composer Zoë Keatingwrote an eloquent and impassioned blog post wrestling with the question of whether she should participate in YouTube’s new Music Key subscription service under terms she finds objectionable. By any estimation, Zoë is a savvy observer of the industry and a DIY success story. With regard to YouTube, Zoë took issue with several provisions of the contract presented to her, including the requirement that she make her entire back catalog available in the new service. She also raised questions about the company’s negotiation style. The post clearly struck a nerve and has been widely discussed.

Zoë’s post is well worth reading. Here are some additional things you should know to really understand the full picture: